Disclaimer: (insert witty and/or sarcastic comment concerning how I do not own Inuyasha here)

GothGurl: Hooray! Yet more Sesshy fics (is obsessed) ...anyway, this one is a bit different then the other three I wrote (not quite as fluffy...more humor based...hopefully) And well, I really only wrote it for the sake of my own amusement, and sanity..the idea wouldn't leave me alone. On with the story!

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Rin hummed very quietly to herself, arranging the little yellow flowers in her hand. She would sigh loudly every so often, trying to get the point across to the toad demon in front of her that she wasn't registering a word he was saying.

He didn't get it.

"--and you wouldn't believe how some of these Peacock demons behave! I mean, everyone likes to show off every now and then but really, the whole bunch of them are hussys! But I do think one of them may have been interested in me, and can you blame them..but you wouldn't understand of course. You're just a silly little human. But I digress, I swear she was giving me the 'yoohoo' eyes and--"

Blah dee blah blah blah...

'I wonder if he would notice if I stole his hat right now and fed it to Ah-Un.' she wondered vaguely. '...or I could train a squirrel to attack him on command. Hmmm...pet squirrel! Cute! That would be fun!' she giggled. Jaken blinked at her.

"An angry peacock demon is no laughing matter, Missy!" he snapped. He actually thought she was listening! How silly.

Jaken seemed to decide to just ignore her short burst of mirth. So, he continued on with his ramblings, swinging his staff around enthusiasticly, "So, the whole lot of them were scuffling around and fighting in the mud -totally barbaric, I didn't approve at all- and then The Master came, and we were all like 'Is it raining hotness in here, or is that just Sesshomaru?' and--"

It took Jaken a moment to notice that said Demon Lord was standing right behind him...glaring.

"Oh." he started to sweat, further sliming up his green skin. "H-hello, Sesshomaru-samaaa...!"

There was a satisfying crunch as the kappa was kicked across the field into a tree.

"Wow." Rin whistled. "Nice contact on that one, Sesshomaru-sama!"

Sesshomaru sniffed indignantly, crossing his one arm across his chest and turning away, walking towards the edge of the trees. Rin was used to that. Demon of few words, her Sesshomaru was.

She watched him absently as he left, turning the flowers in her hands. She wished he would speak to her more, or at least hang around longer, but she knew he was a very busy demon...being a Lord and everything...

It was then that she caught sight of his left sleeve. The one that was empty, fluttering pointlessly in the wind. She had noticed this before, but she had never bothered to ask about her gaurdians slight lack of arm.

Instead, she questioned Jaken. In fact, she had questioned him about it that day, and he answered straightforward enough at first...till the whole peacock demon thing got started (and Rin turned her ears off). But really, how reliable was Jaken about information anyway?

He was, after all, constantly insisting that a carrot was an exotic bird.

Stupid toad.

It was then that typical childhood curiousity struck. And with children like Rin, it strikes hard. She stood up , abandoning her flowers on the ground for now, and skipped after the demon. "Sesshomaru-sama!"

He paused for a moment, but didn't look back. She hopped down by his side and grinned toothily at him. "Sesshomaru-sama, I have a question..."

He nodded, golden eyes flicking down to meet hers without turning his head, "What is it?"

"...how come you only have one arm?"

The demon blinked slowly. He turned his body towards her, now giving her his full attention, " Because the other one isn't there anymore." he said stiffly.

That wasn't enough for our Rin, obviously. "But why, Sesshomaru-sama?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because because."

"Because because WHY?"

"Because--" Sesshomaru paused. Okay, how childish was this? "Never mind Rin."

"But I wanna know!"

"No."

"Sesshomaru-sama..."

"Drop it, Rin."

"Master Jaken said it was because Inuyasha cut off the other one." said Rin matter-of-factly.

Sesshomaru turned his head sharply, growling at Jaken where he was still trying to uncrumple himself at the bottom of the tree. The growl basically translated to "I'm-going-to-kill-you-and-its-going-to-be-painful." But Jaken was used to death threats, he got them often enough, sometimes five times a day!

Rin, however, was unperturbed by this reaction. If anything, it only increased her fascination, "So does that mean its true?"

"...Yes." replied Seshomaru slowly, not taking his eyes off the doomed little toad demon. How would he kill the little blabbermouth? With a pointy stick? Some nails and a mallet? A pillowcase and some bricks, perhaps? OR, maybe he could..

Rin interupted his pleasant thoughts. "Did Inuyasha-kun cut it off on purpose? My Momma always said never to run with sharp things, but she always said you could lose an eye, not an arm." she blinked in thought.

"He did it on purpose." said Sesshomaru flatly, but quickly changed his mind, noticing the horrified look on the girls face. "I mean...he did it by accident when were...playing...hopscotch." 'HOPSCOTCH?' he asked himself, disgusted.

That confirmed it. He was losing his mind. Hopscotch...honestly...

Rin didn't seem to notice anything strange about this statement, in fact, she seemed relieved. "Thats good, Sesshomaru-sama. Brothers shouldn't do stuff like that!" she added fiercely.

"..."

"But you and Inuyasha-kun don't get along very well anyway."

"No..no, not really."

The human girl seemed to consider this, and for a moment Sesshomaru thought he might finally be able to end this awkward conversation, but alas, the girl spoke again.

"Whats it like only having one arm?" she asked curiously, as if this was something perfectly ok to say and NOT insensitive at all. But...Rin's, like, six, so she can be excused.

Sesshomaru just stared at her, wondering if he should just stalk away silently and mysteriously like he usually did at times like this.

"Does it make things harder to do? Like eating and stuff...hey, I've never seen you eat! Do you eat, Sesshomaru-sama?"

Maybe if he just kept staring at her she would stop talking and go away. It worked on other humans...

"Wouldn't that also be a little awkward if you had a girlfriend..or a mate, rather?"

"What?" said the Demon Lord sharply, abandoning his plan to stay silent.

"Especially if you wanted to have kids." the little girl added conversationally, squinting up at the tall dog-demon.

"What?" He repeated, and for some reason there were faint alarm bells going off in his head.

Rin scuffed the ground with her feet. "...Well, thats what Jaken says. But I don't know what he means."

Sesshomaru's acute sense hearing picked up the sound of the toad demons wince and him trying to shuffle away to safety. Oh, he could run...

"Sesshomaru-sama, where do babies come from?"

Oh dear, that sounded a lot like Rin. He looked down and found the little brown eyed girl looking at him oh-so-innocently, one hand tugging at her yukata and the other raised to her lips to bite on her thumbnail -a bad habit of hers-.

"Sesshomaru-sama...where do babies come from?"

"No." Said Sesshomaru. That was the only response he had at that moment.

"What?"

"No." No, no, NO.

Rin pouted, "But I wanna know!"

"Hn."

"Please?" She stretched her eyes wide and wibbled her lip.

Why hadn't he just walked away? Yes, thats what he was going to do. Just walk away and go find something to kill. Preferably Jaken.

But damn...that lip wibble was hard to look away from.

"Why do you want to know?" he asked, as emotion-devoid as ever. There was a touch of concern in there also; he didn't know much about how humans lived their freakishly short lives outside of the fact that they were very easy to pick off and usually kept together in groups. Yes, they had a short lifespan but surely they didn't start taking an interest in breeding THIS young...right?

Oh God...RIGHT?

"I was just curious." said Rin with a shrug.

"Ah." Sesshomaru said, and nothing more.

There was a slight breeze that fluttered the grass around them. Somewhere in the distance, a bird started chirping.

Rin shuffled, "Aren't you going to tell me, Sesshomaru-sama?"

"No." Definetly not.

"...Sesshomaru-sama..." said Rin, giving him a highly skeptical look, one that Sesshomaru recognized; it was the same look he gave Inuyasha whenever the bastard started boasting about how he would surpass his elder brother. "Is the reason you wont tell...is it that you don't know?"

Chirp, chirp, chirp...

Sesshomaru really hated that bird right now.

"Rin." he said after a moment. "Don't you have something else to do?"

"Nope!" said Rin, treating him to a cheesy grin.

Aaaaugh...

It seemed there was no getting out of this one. Served him right for adopting a human child, anyway...

The dog-demon paused then carefully deleted that last sentence. He did not adopt Rin, any more then he'd married Jaken or something similiarly heinous (not to mention stomach-turning). He did not consider her 'his child'.

At least, not usually. Sometimes he did by accident, but those moments of human-like weakness were triumphed through many therapeutic hours of blowing shit up.

Anyway, there was still this whole...'where do babies come from' thing that had to be dealt with. Sesshomaru discreetly took a deep breath, then looked Rin right in the eye, gold gazing down at brown. He opened his mouth to speak...this really was inevitable, after all...

"They grow on trees."

He hadn't even been planning that. That lie had sneaked out from between his pointed teeth so quickly he hadn't even had time to register what part of his surely deteriorating mind it had come from. But there it was.

Despite his bewilderment, on the outside Sesshomaru just stood tall and still, watching and waiting for the little girls reaction.

Rin was silent for a moment, eyes wide. Eventually, she managed to stutter, "T-trees, m'lord?"

"Yes." he lied again. "Demon grow on demon trees, and humans on normal trees." Oh God.

Rin's eyes were like saucers by this point. She looked over her shoulder warily at the trees beyond the field, as if expecting to see villagers hanging from them, waving cheerfully. "But I've never seen..."

"They are very hard to find." he assured her, crossing his one arm across his chest; the stupid arm that had started this whole mess. This was just another thing to hate Inuyasha for...

Rin looked back up at his face; she seemed puzzled at first, but then a small smile spread across her features slowly. That smile vanished as it was overpowered by one of her best grins. "I see, Sesshomaru-sama! Thank you, I think I understand now!"

Good, because I don't, he thought. "Are we done now?" he asked tonelessly.

"Yup!" sunlight glinted off Rin hair as she nodded feircely. She moved her hand to wave farewell (for she was sure he would creep away for a few hours now to regain his dignity) and noticed the flowers were still clutched in her chubby hand. She held them out to him, and he took them. That was just a mechanical reflex on his part now, she always gave her flowers to him.

Not that he WANTED the flowers...he tolerated them. He didn't like getting flowers at all. Nope.

And so the little girl turned away, giving him a strangely knowing glance, before skipping away, arms spread out like a birds and humming loudly to some tune only she could hear.

So, where HAD that lie come from?

He was going to tell her the truth, why shouldn't he? It was no concern of his.

But then, she was so young...so Rin..

Finally, it hit him. That tree thing was the exact same thing his parents had told him when he asked the trecherous question...over five hundred years ago. Obviously he figured it out later, well before Inuyasha was ever born (so he knew perfectly well what his Father was doing with that human woman Izayoi -cough-).

But why...?

Oh.

Damn.

There was that fatherly affection thing again.

It was what his Father said years later that made him realize this; when he asked why they had lied to him when he asked initially, his Father (his mother was long dead by then) answered that he didn't want his son to 'grow up to fast, and just stay a child for awhile.'

Rin wouldn't be a child forever.

Indeed, she was human. One day Rin would be an old woman and he wouldn't have aged a day in appearance. She may marry, have children of her own (well, as long as her mate stayed on his good side) and...

But right now, she was Rin. His Rin. And thats how he wanted her to stay for as long as possible.

Having realized exactly how sentimental that last thought was, Sesshomaru quickly turned on his heel towards the forest, fully intending to find some demon idiotic enough to attack him so he could slaughter it and forget all these stupid..ridiculous...emotions.

Or better yet, he could find Jaken! That idea about the pillowcase and the bricks had definate possibilities...

"Sesshomaru-sama!" called Rin, scampering up to him and latching onto his troublesome empty sleeve.

"Yes?" he asked, suppressing all weariness that could have shown in his voice, because that was an emotion, dammit!

"I've just had an idea!" jabbered Rin, ponytail bobbing excitedly. "Can we go find one of those trees and get a baby sister for me? PLEEEEAAASE?"

Oh, hell.

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OWARI!

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GothGurl: Hmmph, rushed ending. OH WELL! Its short and light, like I intended it. So! Another Sesshy and Rin fanfic for you all...maybe I should write an Inuyasha story that actually has Inuyasha in it, hmm? XD

Reviews make this authoress very happy!